A days work is done.... I have framed most of the paintings for our exhibition at the end of November and the for the "Special Introduction for Women" ladies day and THE GALLERY in Randburg.
They look beautiful. Framing can be such a rewarding task, exhausting too. I had a full time framing business for nearly 20 years . I started when my youngest daughter was 2, determined to stay at home and look after both my daughters. Being an artist, part time art teacher and a framer allowed me to do just that. My life was interesting and diverse... never a dull moment. Of course it was also an ideal vocation for a single mom. I was always there for my children and I didn't have to ask a boss if I could fetch a sick child from school. I stopped framing full time in 2000. I only frame my own work now and that of a few friends.
I concentrate on my painting full time . My children are all grown up but have been a great inspiration for me in my paintings over the years.
These paintings are my latest
Goddess paintings. Each Goddess has her own story -as do we. In some way their stories also relate to us. Enjoy their tales and the healing energy that they bring when we connect with them. They are magical mystical works of art that deal with the essence of the female pshyce. I loved painting them. I hope you enjoy them too.........
Aphrodite Greek Goddess of love and beauty. She is the gentle goddess of sensual love. See Botticelli's painting "The Birth Of Venus" She brings love and healing to those around her through grace and confidence. As roses bloom and apples ripen, so does self-acceptance grow to supreme self-love. Aphrodite is also known to the Romans as Venus. She is the goddess of doves, swans, roses, apples, arts and all things graceful, inspired and creative. According to myth, she emerged as a nymph from the waves and immediately drove almost every male god wild with desire. A part of our stories too girls????
Rhiannon
Is the wise and magical goddess of the moon, Rhiannon hears our wishes and guides us on the path of inspiration. Rhiannon was the lunar Welsh Goddess of fertility and rebirth, transformation, wisdom, and magic. Rhianon is the Goddess of ethereal beauty, she was born with the first moonrise, she is the Muse of poets, and the source of artistic inspiration. The rides in the sky on a chariot driven by white horses . I think each and every woman has an affinity to the moon. Last night the moon was full and bright in a misty sky, surrounded by a huge aura.
Persephone Goddess of the Spring and associated with awakening. She is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. She is an individual Goddess but she is linked to Demeter, her mother, and Hecate, Goddess of the seen and unseen worlds. Together they are known as the triple Goddesses- the maiden, the mother and the crone. The myth of Persephone is one of my favourites. This myth explains the natural processes and cycles of the seasons, with the descent and return of the goddess, she brings about the change of seasons. She is also known as the goddess of spring's bounty.
Once upon a time when she was playing in a flowery meadow with her Nymph companions, she was seized by Haides and carried off to the underworld as his bride. Her mother Demeter despaired at her dissappearance and searched for her throughout the world accompanied by the goddess Hecate bearing torches. When she learned that her father Zeus had conspired in her daughter's abduction she was furious, and refused to let the earth fruit until Persephone was returned. Zeus consented, but because the girl had tasted of the food of Haides--a handful of pomegranate seeds--she was forced to forever spend a part of the year with her husband in the underworld. Her annual return to the earth in spring was marked by the flowering of the meadows and the sudden growth of the new grain. Her return to the underworld in winter, conversely, saw the dying down of plants and the halting of growth. The mint and pomegranate is sacred to her.
Goddess of WaterWater is the element of purification, the subconscious mind. It is love and emotions. Water is the element of absorption and production. It saturates all life forms and within us we flow with the "tide" of our feelings. It involves intuition, insight, conception and pregnancy, fertility, the womb, health, beauty and divination.
STEP ONE- The dancing figures were taken from models in flowing dresses from a Cosmo Magazine fashion shoot. I drew the images in basic lines on a sheet of paper and arranged the figures to give the feeling of movement and freedom. Next came the canvas, this one is a big one(1200x1000mm). I loosely drew the figures on the canvas with a piece of charcoal. Then blocked in areas of darker colour.
STEP TWO-I start building up the colours and add in more detail eg. the hair.
STEP THREE- I gradually build up more colour and by now I so in my right brain that I no longer can explain the process. If you are an artist you'll know what I mean...
STEP FOUR- I give the backround more attention...
